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December 26, 2004
10 weeks at top 25
Sorry to brag a bit but just checking and it is nice to see that we have just entered ten straight weeks in Amazon's top 25 bestselling marketing books category. In some really great company too - with Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin and Phil Kotler at or near the top through most of these weeks. Below is the weekly breakdown (for further detail see previous entry):
| Week | Marketing Rank |
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 15 |
| 3 | 5 |
| 4 | 2 |
| 5 | 18 |
| 6 | 26 |
| 7 | 11 |
| 8 | 24 |
| 9 | 24 |
| 10 | 18 |
This is of course not to mention all the screaming sales happening at my mom's favorite bookstore in my hometown (it's amazing how valuable retired ladies seem to be finding marketing and strategy advice).
Posted by johnza at 05:27 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 22, 2004
Walls vs. Pillars
Posted by johnza at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 21, 2004
Strategy – the study of communication
Recently reading TE Lawrence’s biography “Lawrence of Arabia” by B.H. Liddell Hart and came across some really great quotes and thoughts on strategy.
Lawrence was a great student of military and political strategy (as was Liddell Hart – an awesome strategy thinker
in his own right). Before he helped engineer the Arab revolt that so deeply influences world politics today, he read all kinds of more or less obscure books on strategy. Here are some thought provoking quotes from his readings:
From Wilhelm von Willisen (mid 1800s), he found a definition of strategy that truly spoke to him:
- “The study of communication.” This is really interesting – all about how you move, stay in touch with your resources and allies and stay on top of what is going on. Not to be flip but it sounds a lot like the core of marketing – products as conversations, businesses as conversations, teams as conversations.
From Marshal Saxe (mid 1700s) he learned some of the fundamentals of unconventional competition that we think about all the time when it comes to the stealth play:
- “I am not in favor of giving battle, especially at the outset of a war. I am even convinced that an able general can wage ware his whole life without being compelled to do so.
- “The whole secret of the art of war rests in the legs and not the arms”
Valuable lessons for taking the indirect approach. Think of the dynamics. What is the reaction to your action? What is your ability to manuever? What is the value of direct confrontation? What are the risks? What makes most sense given your objective, your abilities and those of the others on the field?
Posted by johnza at 08:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 18, 2004
The map is not the terrain
"The map, the map, the map. The map is not the terrain."
So says Sam (the grizzled, hard boiled ex-CIA operative played by Robert DeNiro in the movie Ronin), as he plans an ambush on his intended target. He likes the plan but needs to go directly to the places and people before he can feel confident about it.
How true. We often stress the importance of understanding your playing field before deciding on your strategy/play or before you go ahead and execute a bunch of tactics. By this we don't mean just asking the core questions in abstract or counting on market research or studys (although of course these things can help). To really understand the terrain you have to go to it.
If trying to understand the gaps/needs of your targets/customers - be one, use your products, talk to other users, spend a day with them (not just an hour in a focus group drugging them with M&Ms). If trying to understand your competition don't just read their website and read their reports - use their products, go to their trade-show booths, interview their customers, try to think like them, maybe even hire some of them. And if trying to understand your own strengths and vulnerabilities, don't rely on yourself - go back and ask those above. It's great to map all the gaps in your playing field, but remember the map is not the terrain.
Note - DeNiro has a bunch of other great quotes in this movie, such as
- In reponse to the question "have you ever killed anyone?" he replies "I hurt someone's feelings once."
- In response to the question if he is OK pulling out a bullet from his own side, he replies "No problem, I once took out a guy's appendix with a grapefruit spoon."
Posted by johnza at 08:28 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
December 12, 2004
Stealth so Loud that You Can't
http://prmachine.blogspot.com/2004/12/backfiring-stealth-marketing-campaigns.html
http://www.cmomagazine.com/poll/results.html?ID=1192
http://www.cmomagazine.com/read/120104/under-the-radar.html
betas that arent really beta http://marketingplaybook.com/2004/12/11/beta_as_marketing_tool.html
50 50
Total Respondents:56
True or false: Stealth "word of mouth" marketing campaigns will backfire if revealed to consumers.
Posted by johnza at 11:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Different Rule of Three
Recently ran across a very cool new site. It's called 43 Things from Robot Co-op. It is a sort of communal, massively multiplayer, wish list of all the hopes and dreams of its visitor/members. You enter yours and see how they match with others. The size of type grows with the popularity of the wish.
Interesting to see the common themes. In our book we are always harping on the rule of three (keep it simple - three buckets only of benefits, features, proof - otherwise people won't remember). Well, the same seems to apply to people's desires. 43 Thing co-creator Erik Benson notes that across the thousands of entries, there are three highly common themes:
1. be happy,
2. live simply, and
3. get laid
Interesting to see how yours match up (and given the last one it would also be interesting to know more about the participant population - e.g. their gender and how old/married/single they are).
Via Paul Kedrowsky
Posted by johnza at 07:45 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Taglines for Marketing Playbook
We recently wrote about the decline of taglines. Pretty interesting, in the process we found one blog with eschewing taglines as it's tagline (sehr gut) and another approach - have a whole bunch of them.
So what the heck, even though we have kind of a tagline now - Taking the Mystery out of Marketing - I thought it would be fun to list out a bunch of alternatives. Here's my top of mind list:
- Lead, simply
- Look, Learn, Choose, Repeat
- Clear a Path
- Find the right gap and right way to fill it
- Tactics can kill you, strategy can save your life
- Strategy made simple
- Ask the obvious, do the needful
- Run plays or die
- Real people run plays
- Marketing is not “mystery meat”
Posted by johnza at 07:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 11, 2004
Beta as Marketing Tool
Now it's 37 Signals turn to beat me to the punch. I was just thinking about how there have been a lot of "Betas" going on in the internet lately.
Betas used to be used primarily quietly to test your products amongst a defined universe of users before you made them public. Now the whole idea of a Beta seems to be inversed. The word has become a marketing term. It seems to be a way to build purient interest in new product, and a sense of - often very temporary or psuedo - exclusivity and scarcity. Kind of a stealth play aimed at not being stealth at all.
Of course there was gmail which is so unstealth that everyone is following it to keep up but is still in "Beta." Now there's a new Google Groups
open to the public, but Beta of course.
Google Scholar
that is for big files and PDFs and even has a tagline (stand on the shoulders of giants), but of course is Beta.
And now there is Google Suggest
that tries to read your mind (by filling in what it thinks your search might be by the popularity of all other searches).
Search engine watch says that most of Google is in Beta.
Not to be outdone, MSN has followed suit with things like MSN Spaces (blog like thing in beta) and only recently made MSN Search "public." By the time MSN search launched nothing was really new about it. Really leaves you asking what really is a launch?
Jason at 37 signals has a whole other list of seemingly perpetual betas. Neat marketing tool when this first became a trend but now you really have to wonder if the word has any meaning left. Pretty soon we will start seeing public alphas.
Posted by johnza at 03:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 07, 2004
Puget Sound AMA December 8
John will be at the Puget Sound American Marketing Association tommorrow. The focus will be on the plays and the ABCs. A bit late notice bit it's at 12:00 noon at Washington Athletic Club, 6th & University, Seattle. Should be fun.
Posted by johnza at 12:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 04, 2004
Internet Explorer Share Drop
IE Share Drops below 90% in Europe. A classic stealth play. The new Firefox browser is not going to be on the average users desktop anytime soon, but like the AMD Athlon 64, it is encroaching into the influential end user segment.
I've been using Firefox for the last three months and I'm amazed at how many other folks are using it now. The big benefits of more features and speed really seem to have helped.
Now over at Microsoft, it is not a big deal. After all, going from 99% to 90%, doesn't really matter. On the other hand, if an entire segment goes, like power users, then it might be the real share shift is more like regular users are still at 99% IE, but influentials are 80% Firefox now, so the shape of the numbers really does matter.
Posted by rich at 09:22 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 02, 2004
The Right Marketing for the Right Play
At the same Ignition offsite, a recurring theme among CEOs was the importance of not only simplicity but also consistency across the organization. So several folks also asked "OK so I've chosen my play, that should keep my strategy simply, but what does that imply in terms of the marketing decisions on down the organzation, how do I keep these consistent?"
They asked for a quick summary of the standard implications of each chosen play on the key marketing elements. It's also in the book, but here's a reprint:
Posted by johnza at 05:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Right Play for the Right Field
Yesterday Ignition had one of it's regular portfolio company CEO offsites. One of the key themes for CEOs was the importance of making the complex simple. This time we introduced the playbook and used it as a means to driving that simplicity in reviewing and discussing each company's strategy (or play) and it's marketing. Really sparked some stimulating discussions. Great CEOs call clear, simple plays.
Anyway, amongst other things there were frequent requests for a summary of the best conditions, pros, cons, i.e. decision criteria for each play. It's in the book, but what the heck, here's a reprint:
Posted by johnza at 05:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Build vs. Buy vs. Take
A frequent discussion within companies (and within VCs too) is whether, in attempting to get into a new business, to build what is needed or to buy it. Obvious pros and cons to each.
Building your own capabilities can help keep things integrated, it can help maintain your control, it may be cheaper, but it can take longer to create and generate customers. Buying into a business has the benefits of quickness, often bringing new customers along with it, injecting new talent or assets to stir up the mix in your company, but may have a lot of hidden costs in the digestion process and hidden gotchas you didn't find in due diligence.
In recently looking at a potential candidate for an acquistion (lots of interesting qualities: recent bad performer, trading below revenue, but filled with useful assets and solid customer base), we discussed all these pros and cons but also looked at an alternative. Don't buy, don't build totally from scratch - take.
Yeah, figure out how to simply target this weakened but larger player and take their business the old fashioned way - smart, direct competition. Some elements for making this work:
- make sure the target has customers worth taking
- make sure these customers recognize the dicey future of their current supplier
- use this issue to make them aware of your alternative
- device a specific switcher campaign
- create specific migration features in your product to make the shift easy
- create specific, attractive migration offerings for them to make it urgent for them to act now
- support them in the migration process with a clear set of steps, etc.
- monitor how well you're doing, their doing and of course how the ailing big guy is doing in response.
This kind of strategy worked really well in the Word/Excel vs. WordPerfect/123 dragraces of the past and it seems to be at least having some impact in the Gmail vs. Hotmail dragrace on now.
Even if you are currently stealth and want to avoid poking a really big player in the eye, maybe there is a more moderate size competitor who suffered badly from some bursting bubble and while on the decline has some business worth taking to help project you to the next level.
Posted by johnza at 05:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Death of Taglines: How about Taglines Galore?
Recently we wrote about the death of taglines. The smart folks at 37 signals picked up on this and generated a very interesting discussion. Net net – there are good taglines, bad taglines, confusing taglines and no taglines. Some work wonders, others act as a prison or a tax you have to pay. But the task of making less really be more, of really communicating your positioning, aspirations, culture and attributes – current and future – is a very, very tough one and one that may just as easily lead you astray. You be the judge on your own business. 37 signals themselves came up with a very novel approach - which I think is just as interesting as posting your values – they posted all the taglines they thought made sense for their business. Check them out.
Posted by johnza at 05:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack